What If
by OverwhelmedAndTerrified
Summary: They laughed until their ribs hurt, until their stomachs cramped. And then, when the sky was blushing pink and the sun gradually setting, Austin's brain wandered back to the beginning. Austin & Ally 2-shot. Kind of OOC because of the drugs.
1. Chapter 1

_**In which Austin and Ally meet in the 9**_ _ **th**_ _ **grade through a stolen song and corn dog drumsticks. She slams her book shut and clutches it her chest every time he comes around and he wonders how this lyrical genius can be so painfully shy. When they sit at the piano bench together he makes sure their legs touch and their fingers collide far more than necessary and she blushes every single time until that rising pink becomes one of his favorite things about her. When they finally kiss it's with ebony and ivory keys before them and her book wide open, for their eyes only. They're kiss is a confession because by that point the practice room is sacred and it is theirs. He's her boyfriend and when he grins at her over a candlelit pancake dinner she pinches herself hard and uselessly beneath the table. For 2 years they explore one another, joking and laughing one moment and sharing their ugliest secrets the next. For 2 years they kiss, they fight, they smile, they make music that transcends piano and lyrics, and they cultivate a love that's beautiful in its breathtaking depth. And then, things happen; painful, unforgivable things that suck the life out of all that's blossomed between them. And as Ally glares at his blurry silhouette through tear choked eyes, and Austin stares at her silently, his throat raw from screaming, they both know that something's destroyed and it's permanent. They break up. It's the summer between 10**_ _ **th**_ _ **and 11**_ _ **th**_ _ **grade and they break up. And everything, EVERYTHING is so awkward for so long that the songs kind of suck and Trish and Dez walk on eggshells constantly. Then one day they're alone in the practice room, its hallowed walls now tainted, and Austin makes some dumb joke and Ally's laughter is real for the first time in a small eternity. They enter very tentatively into a friendship even though they can't make eye contact for longer than 7 seconds at a time and their conversations often slip into these black holes of uncomfortable silence and, really, could things ever truly be as they were? One late afternoon at the beginning of their senior year, they find themselves parked on one of Miami's highest cliffs, lying side by side on the hood of his car and watching the sky change color with the setting sun. It's still so tense and weird and they're both thinking of excuses to leave until Austin, in a fit of desperation, pulls out the freshly-rolled joint he planned to smoke later, and awkwardly asks Ally if she'd like to partake.**_

He allowed the smoke to mingle in his lungs for a moment. And when it felt right, his lips didn't purse but simply parted, releasing a potent cloud into the evening sky.

"Als?"

"Hm?" She reached over and pinched the joint between her fingers. For a split second they were both holding it, connected by a psychoactive drug.

"Do you…." And then he drifted off under a dizzy spell. The car hood beneath him rocked gently.

"Hm?" she repeated absentmindedly. She stuck the doobie between her lips and let her arms fall to the cool windshield.

Austin chuckled suddenly, "We're like that movie Wayne's World on this car right now."

Ally tried to continue inhaling and puffing hands free but a burst of laughter rolled up and out of her throat. Her clumsy hands reached for the joint as quickly as they could, pulling it from her lips.

"Yea all we need is for an airplane to fly overhead while you curse me out."

He took the reefer from her slowly, "Hey wait are you suggesting that I'm Garth in this scenario?"

"Duuuh Wayne's a brunette and Garth's a blonde." Ally declared grinning like a sweet little know it all.

They laughed loudly and uncontrollably and shook the car with breathless vibrations.

"I AM WAYNE." She whispered it like a monumental proclamation between the giggles. They laughed until their ribs hurt, until their stomachs cramped. And then, when the sky was blushed pink and the sun gradually setting, Austin's brain wandered back to the beginning.

"Als?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think that um…" he paused to let the rest of the sentence fall into place, "…that um if I had never stolen your song that we would've still like...you know like been together?"

"Oh God Austin." Ally groaned around the joint that had somehow found its way back between her lips. "Isn't it bad enough that we have the weirdest, most awkward friendship ever? Now you're getting all mushy on me."

"Come on Als humor me." He glanced at her. She looked at him as she inhaled and, as usual, found it nearly impossible to deny those incredible eyes.

"Okay…what was the question again?"

He snickered, "I said uh...do you think that if I didn't steal your song or play the drums with corn dogs that we uh still would've like somehow found our way to each other?"

Ally pursed her lips and blew towards the stars. The question felt too heavy for all their current lightness. The joint smoldered as she passed it to him. Their fingers brushed.

"Yes….yeah…" she decided in an instant.

"You think?"

"It wouldn't have been until after high school though."

He grinned, "Oh really?" then inhaled and held it.

"Are you ready for me to paint the uh paint the picture for you?"

His grin widened before shrinking to a pucker and liberating the smoke, "Oh PLEASE do I'm already fucking riveted."

"Shut up. Just shut up. Ok so…after I graduate from Marino High I'm now attending MUNY and-"

He gasped, "Congratulations!"

She couldn't help but laugh at his enthusiasm, "It's just pretend Austin."

He grinned and passed her the ganja.

"Anyway um…" she pinched the joint between her thumb and pointer, "Yea so I'm going to MUNY and you," she pointed their shared marijuana stick at him, "are about to go on a world tour soon Mr. Rockstar."

"Ooo I like the sound of that." he reached for the weed but she moved it away. Reflexes severely delayed, his fingers continued forward and swiped at the air.

"So anyway," Ally paused to take a shallow hit, "Anyway….MUNY has hired the one and only Taylor Swift to perform at our homecoming rally."

"That's so generous of T-Swift."

"Yeah she's a very giving person and plus me and her go waaaay back."

"Ah." He smiled dreamily at her, "So this story is just straight up fiction then?"

She nudged him and handed over the joint, "Shut the fuck up the two of us are bff's okay."

He just took it and smiled wider, loving this drug induced side of Ally, enjoying the uncharacteristic profanity rolling from those perfectly pink lips.

"Okay okay okay," he said, "so Taylor's putting on a show…"

"Yeah she is but then tragedy strikes!" she lifted her hands up, fingers splayed against the sunset.

"Dun Dun DUUUUN!" Austin cried dramatically, breathing smoke like a dragon.

"She falls and breaks her leg on the set of the 'Shake It Off' video."

"That so?" he puffed.

"Devastating break dancing accident."

"Hm pity."

"Sooo guess who we get to replace Miss Swift?"

"….Mr. Swift?"

"Noo it's-" Ally burst into a fit of laughter suddenly, the weed bubbling in her system, "Seriously?!"

"I'm just saying."

"ANYWAY, we get the rockingest," she suddenly cupped her hands around her mouth, whisper-yelling like an announcer, "the rollingest, the beach blonde that's got it going on! Austiiiin Moooooon!"

He chuckled, sending tiny clouds into the sky.

"And you, being just as generous as T-Swift, agree to do it before you go jetting around the globe."

"Oh yeah of course us blondes are a very giving people."

She smiled, "I'm on the homecoming committee and it's my job to tune all the instruments for the talent before the show."

"The talent." He repeated with another grin.

"So I'm out there on the stage we've set up on the football field, fiddling with the piano. And I'm excited because if you requested a piano then that means you're going to be singing something slow and sweet at some point in the show."

Her voice softened, like the opening notes of a sad song.

"It's Spring in New York so everything out there is green and blue and warm and when I breath in it smells like tulips and the maple and spruce wood of the piano."

Austin let the smoke from his now 3rd successive hit linger in his airway.

Ally sighed, her eyes searching the sky, finding new stars as the daylight dwindled, "It's an antique square grand, refurbished and painted cherry red."

He let out a low, smoldering whistle, "Impressive. You're probably the only one that knows how to tune thatt thing, their string designs are a nightmare."

She just shrugged, "I'm a piano geek. Sue me."

But he just smirked instead.

"I'm out there on the stage alone. Everyone else is off putting up decorations and stuff and I've already done the drums, keyboard, and guitars. The piano's the last thing. I'm testing it out, playing the first few notes of one of my favorite songs of yours, when somebody else walks up on stage behind me."

"Is it me?"

She smiles, "I don't _see_ somebody walk on stage. I don't even _hear_ it. I feel it."

"…that's fucking creepy."

"Can I tell the story asshole?!" she laughed.

"Oh please continue I have to know how this ends."

"Shush." Ally snatched the roach, "So anyway…yeah I can tell someone's there behind me because the hairs on the back of my neck rise so violently it's like they're trying to rip out of my fucking skin."

The tiny joint found its way to her rosy mouth and Austin shivered, his brown eyes staring up into the darkening atmosphere.

"There's this electric prickling climbing up my spine, inch by inch, vertebrae by vertebrae. And even the weather changes. The barometric pressure shifts like there's a hurricane just over the horizon, waiting to turn my life completely upside down. The greens and blues and tulips and woods are sharper, brighter. It's all emeralds and sapphires now, flowery perfume and peeling bark." She pauses to inhale a lung full of the sweetly pungent marijuana, holding it for a moment, then releasing a baseball sized puff of grey-green smoke to rise and rival the brightening moon before drifting apart.

"I'm sitting there on the stage, staring down at the black and white keys with every single one of my senses heightened, wondering who it is that's standing behind me and yet, somehow already knowing. I turn around and there you are. Austin Moon." Ally closed her eyes, pinching the doobie between her thumb and pointer finger. "And you're staring."

He raised his arms up, folding his hands behind his head.

"I don't know this about you yet but you always take a minute to walk on the stage before anyone shows up. You like to stand in the middle and close your eyes and hold out your arms and let the silence wash over you. You revel in the emptiness because you know that you could've always ended up that way, audience-less, no one to listen or cheer. And the reality of that stings like hell, it pierces you somewhere vital and important but the pain is humbling so you love it."

"I love it." He repeated without thinking.

"You didn't expect anyone to be there on the stage. But I am. We make eye contact but I can't move. You're in a plain black v-neck, jeans, and some Chuck Taylors. Your hair, even more blonde than I imagined, is messy but with purpose. You're handsome, you're gorgeous, and I can't move. I'm a huge fan of yours and all I want to do is scream and attack you and get down on one knee and ask for your hand in marriage but I can't."

They both chuckled at that, breathy and light and dizzy.

"I can't because I can tell that you're…important. And not like celebrity important but important to _me._ " she licked her lips. "And I can see even from where I'm sitting that your eyes are a lighter brown than I thought, especially in the hot Spring sunlight. They're like an amber-ochre combination. And I realize then that I'm grinning because that color has always made me smile and it's like I finally know why."

Austin's heart rate kicked into a slightly higher gear as the inhaled chemicals coursed through his blood. Ally took another hit, relishing in the bitter taste as it coated her tongue. Behind her eyelids, a sun-drenched rockstar stood before her in a world of heightened color.

"You can't move either even though I'm just some college girl because you feel it too. The _importance_. And you, usually supremely confident, falter a little. But you walk slowly up to me anyway because your body won't allow you not to. We look like opposites, you in your dark clothes and me in something floral and flowy. We don't look like we belong anywhere near each other. But we do. We're connected by a cherry red piano, by brown eyes and the scent of tulips and something else that's larger than the imagination." Her eyes opened slowly, careful not to shatter the illusion, "Aaaand the rest is history….oh yeah and you perform and it's great."

"Interesting story." Smiling, Austin accepted the reefer from her with his heart nearly in his throat, "But what if Taylor shows up right in the middle of our little moment to say that she can perform even with a broken leg?"

Ally sighed, "Then I push that damn piano on top of her and break T-Swift's everything else."

They both laughed. They both floated at an altitude that couldn't be reached with just Mary Jane alone.

"I like that story." Austin took his hit before holding the roach out to Ally, "Party on Wayne."

She grinned and pinched it carefully, brushing their fingers in the process, "Party on Garth."

 **Quick A/N: Just realized that some of you may not understand the Wayne's World reference. Sorry for being old. Nothing a quick Googling won't fix.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay let me ask you something now." Ally's curiosity was as piqued as it could be under a host of calming side effects.

"Hit me with your best shot!" Austin suddenly sang with no effort, "Come on and hit me with your best shot!"

"You sound surprisingly awful."

"Ally hit me with your best shot! Fire awaaaaayyyy!"

"Was that…is that like permission for me to ask my question?"

"Hit me with your best shot!" He sang again.

"Oh God. Okay, do _you_ think that even if I wasn't a song writer that we would have still fallen in love?"

Austin's eyes flew open to study the night sky. He waved off the joint as she offered it to him, granting her its last few hits.

"Hmmm, now who's being mushy?" he mumbled from the very peak of his stoned state. She felt herself blush mildly even with her blood vessels full of THC.

"Humor me." Ally clamped the teeny tiny roach between her lips and pulled.

"Alright…" he placed his hands behind his head again and shifted on the windshield, "Would we have still fallen in love? Is that the question?"

"Mhmm."

"Ummm…I'm gonna say yes. Why not?"

"How though?"

He scrunched his mouth to the side and squinted one eye in thought, "Hmmm…"

"We're like as opposite as opposites could be." She took the very last toke of their doobie for 2, "Remember when I tried to get you to cloud watch with me?"

"Of course I remember." He grinned, "That was the day I found out you basically had a pet goose and you named it fucking Pickles. How could I forget that shit?"

Ally laughed so hard she thought she'd never stop. It wasn't until she lay on her side, one arm wrapped around her aching belly that it grew quiet again.

"Hit me with your best shot." Austin mumbled under his breath.

"Why are you still singing that?"

"It's stuck in my head now."

Ally tossed the extinguished roach, "Okay so what's the story?"

"The story?"

"How are we going to fall in love?"

He abandoned the stars to look at her instead, the wording of her question suddenly more captivating than any night sky. Ally stared back at him with half-lidded eyes. Austin chuckled for no reason and observed the wide open twilight once more.

"Ok so…if you never become my songwriter then I'm pretty sure my career is nonexistent."

"Austin."

"I'm serious."

She didn't say anything.

He sighed in contentment as the drugs continued to perfuse his tissues, "We fall in love slowly and then all at once."

She bit her lip gently and still said nothing.

"We're both born and raised in Miami," Austin launched into his tale, making it up as he went along, "So we go to the same school for like ever but I mean, we have nothing in common so we know _of_ each other but we don't really _know_ each other. We're in different social circles."

"Makes sense."

"We see each other around school or at the mall sometimes and you're just as pretty as ever but it never really registers to me for some reason."

"Probably because my hair's brown and my bra size isn't double basketball."

He should've been offended but he wasn't. Not when some of it was actually true and not when the girl who'd said it still owned at least 90% of his heart. So Austin laughed, glad that they could tease each other again, even if only because of the weed.

"Veeery funny Miss Dawson." He licked his dry lips, "Okay so anyway we go on existing without each other. I keep trying for stardom but failing miserably because my songwriting sucks and you spend your days reading and…" he suddenly pretended to vomit, "…cloud watching."

Ally punched his shoulder, "Need I remind you there's a whole cloud watchers CLUB. It's not like I'm the only one in Miami."

"Allyson," he sighed, "A group of pathetic people is worse than 1 pathetic person. That's just science."

"Watch it Monica!"

"Can I tell the story?"

"Ugh fine keep going."

"Aaaanyway…" he paused to find his footing, "Oh yeah so anyway we go on living our lives, hanging out with our own friends, I date a couple girls and you date-" here Austin paused again, his chest tightening just enough to be noticeable, "..that guy who's name I don't wanna say. But-"

"Wait….Voldemort?"

He shot her his most quizzical look, "What? Vold- No….I'm talking about Dallas."

"Ooooohhhh."

"What the f- Voldemort?"

"Well you said you didn't want to say the name!"

"But Voldemort is 'He who must not be named'."

"Oh just continue with the story!"

He eyed her momentarily, wondering just how high she really was, then kept on, "Yeah so anyway we date some people, we break up with some people, we don't really hang out or speak or anything. And by 11th grade I'm still not famous and I'm desperate to do something, ANYTHING, music-related. So I decide to get a job at the only music store in the mall-"

"Austin you've been telling this story for like 5 hours now. When do I come in?"

"Shhhhh…." He intended to press a finger to her lips but ended up clumsily brushing his whole hand across her face, "Patience grasshopper."

She laughed and it made him smile.

"So I go to Sonic Boom and who do I see standing behind the counter?"

Ally grinned, "Is it me?"

"It's your dad."

"I hate you."

"And long story short I get the job. We work together sometimes and we're always nice enough to each other but your head's always in a book and mine's always on my next potential song so it's not like our friendship suddenly blossoms between the drums and guitars or anything." He watched as the last traces of pink in the sky relented to the encroaching purple, "But you're still just as pretty as ever…and it's still not registering."

She blinked slowly.

"So one day your dad closes up early because it's slow so we get the rest of day off. You tell him you're going to a cloud watcher's meeting. I call Dez but he's somewhere busy…being Dez, so I ask if I can tag along with you. I've heard you mention it before and in my head I'm thinking you can't possibly mean literal cloud watching, it has to stand for something else. I'm curious and I'm bored so when you shrug and say 'sure I guess', I smile because now I don't have to go home and write another shitty song."

"Oh Aus-"

"So we go to the meeting," he cut her off, knowing that if she started being all sweet and supportive he wouldn't be able to hear anything over his own pounding heart for at least half an hour. "And there I am staring up into the blue beyond trying to turn white puffy things into pineapples and canoes."

"Don't forget the car with wings."

"Riiiiiight. Anyway I'm bored out of my skull and, even though I won't admit it out loud, I'm kinda frustrated that I can't see the things everyone else is seeing. Then you come over, pouting, with those big brown eyes imploring me to at least try. So I do. I squint my eyes and crane my neck and cock my head to the side, hoping the big puffy thing will magically become a bunny on a bicycle….but it doesn't."

Ally shook her head, "Amateur."

He chuckled, "Fuck you."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

"So I say it's a snowman eating a marshmallow or something and the other cloud watchers boo me. But you don't. You smile in a way that I can't put my finger on but it makes me want to smile back even though I feel like an idiot. Then you tell me that it's okay not to see things as everyone else does, that perspective is precious, to be explored and treasured for its uniqueness. And I smile wider because not even 20 minutes under the summer sky with you and I've learned that you're the most articulate person I've ever known."

She blushed, remembering that exact conversation from years ago. He watched her, the pinkish tint of her cheeks visible even in the diminishing sunlight.

"Then a thought hits me like lightning and I'm waving goodbye as I'm running off. And it's in my bedroom where I write the best song I've ever written. I mean, it's nowhere near as good as the stuff you write but for me it's pretty good. I'm so excited about it but still so stupid because even after staring into your eyes and hearing those profound words…it still doesn't register."

She shook her head again, "Sooo stupid."

"Anyway!...where was I?" he turned to her with half-lidded eyes and a marijuana-induced fuzziness in his muscles.

"Ummm you just watched the clouds with me, then you wrote a song."

"Oh yeah yeah yeah right. Okay so yeah we start to talk more when we work together. And I learn that you're even nerdier than I thought. You like to read and eat pickles and do everything that's just the opposite of fun. But still there's something about you. I'm not sure what but it's like every time you talk about your interests they're always so far removed from any of my interests that it just….interests me."

They both abruptly began to crack up. Austin laughed until tears stung his eyes and he began to cough violently. He was falling apart and it just made Ally laugh harder. They couldn't fully realize it with Mary Jane tickling their brains, but Austin and Ally hadn't laughed so openly and so lightheartedly, either alone or together, in far too long.

"Okay Moon finish the-" but then she was off again, giggling without control.

Austin wiped at his eyes, gradually calming down, "Um so-" another short bark of laughter, "Okay so yea we- shhh Als it wasn't _that_ funny. So we start to- Als shhhhh stop laughing. So we talk more and, okay, maybe there is some friendship forming behind the counter of Sonic Boom. You're so different and unexpected so I still go with you to your cloud watcher's meetings and stare up into miles of air and water vapor just to see if my brain can bend nothing into something."

She smiled and raised her arms up over her head. Her nerve endings were shaking like maracas and the vibrations within her flesh were more delicious than pickles.

"Austin I cannot picture you a cloud watcher."

"Crazy right? Guess what else you get me to do?"

"Hmmmm...go to the umbrella store?"

"Okay this friendship is over." Austin started to get up but Ally quickly pulled him back down to rest on the car hood and windshield.

"Oh come on that was funny!" She protested, "Okay go ahead with the story."

He had to chuckle in spite of himself, "You are so fucking corny I swear to God. So anyway one day I go to the cloud watching spot for the meeting but we're the only 2 there. And you tell me that the meeting's cancelled and ask if I want to join you at the library instead. And if it was anybody else I'd say no way and go running for the beach but…" he shook his head, a smirk forming without him telling it to, "…you're different, you're _opposite_."

And, God, if he didn't make that word sound magical. It rolled off the lips Ally had imagined kissing long before she actually kissed them. It curled up like their smoke, weightless and permeating, to mingle among the stardust. She felt that word, _opposite_ , pressing on her skin a split second before she felt Austin's eyes doing the same. Ally started to wonder if the weed had heightened her sense of touch and, if so, was it supposed to do that?

"So before I even realize what I'm doing, we're in the library walking down one of the aisles and looking for something by umm…who's that guy with the raven and the creepy stories?"

"Edgar Allan Poe?"

"Yeeaah that guy! You've got me in between these million foot tall bookshelves searching for something by that Poe guy. And I swear to God I'm about to lose my mind because it's so insanely ridiculously horribly quiet that I can hear my own hair grow I think. But then you find the book, pressing your finger to its spine and turning to look at me with diamonds in your eyes…" he shut his lids for a moment, able to picture it in his gigantic imagination. His lips moved, "Warm brown sugar crystal gaze, smile like the moon, a beacon in the dark…", whispering whatever sprouted in his mind.

Ally grinned beside him, catching every uttered word.

"And you pull the book out slowly, as if the sound of the covers sliding together is your favorite noise in the world." He opened his eyes, "You start to whisper to me as the book comes toward you in slow motion. But you don't say all that typical cliché bullshit about books being an escape from reality because you don't need to escape. You're happy with your life. You tell me that books _are_ reality, each one its own real separate world. And even when I look at you like you're insane, you go on to say that it's your responsibility to invade the pages and be the 'Ally' of each universe. And in my mind it's the weirdest thing I've ever heard but, I mean, we both know I sorta gravitate towards weird."

They thought of Dez and laughed.

"I'm confused but I like it. I ask you what you mean and you say something like…well if _our_ world has an 'Ally' then shouldn't all of them? And if there's going to be an 'Ally', then it just makes the most sense for you to do it. Then you stand there just as interesting and strange as the hundreds of books surrounding us. And every piece of you is like its own universe, your smile, your milky skin, each wide curious eye, and every single strand of hair. I mean all of you. And it's at that moment, while I'm still questioning your sanity and also losing mine in the deafening silence that…it registers."

He paused, his heart already starting to hammer at just the thought of such a pivotal moment. And Ally was faring no better, her mind and body both fluttering like butterflies. She always knew that Austin had the _feelings_ but it was an immensely pleasant surprise to hear the _words_ and have a boy so goofy and childlike weave their real memories into an impromptu tale of romance. She began to wonder if the weed was responsible for that too.

They both laid there quietly, staring at a low hanging moon. This point of the story, where fictional Austin falls for fictional Ally was like a rabbit hole and they teetered on the edge. They could either fall in and explore feelings that weren't quite so fictional, or back away and tip toe around it.

"And I can't believe it's taken me all these years to notice that your eyelashes are so long they can almost reach out and touch me," Austin continued, not quite out of the perilous depths, "or the natural carnation pink of your lips…the way you radiate femininity and mystery like Miami sunshine.." he was drifting on a high, his eyes low and his mouth dry and his heart happy, "All of that and more come washing over me like a tidal wave and all of sudden my stomach's turning like a washing machine and my heart's doing a fucking drum solo. It's harder to breathe in between those shelves. All that while you just stand there holding Poe and murdering me with a smile."

She sighed.

"Then you turn and start to head for the checkout desk but…"

Silence, briefly.

Ally licked her lips, "But what Austin?"

"But then I guess I'm…I mean I don't know why, maybe it's because you chew your hair when you're nervous, or that you used to dot your i's with little flowers back in 6th AND 7th grade, or that you always mouth the answer to yourself when a teacher asks a question instead of raising your hand…or maybe it's suddenly occurs to me that I've noticed all this stuff about you without meaning to and long before Sonic Boom. Whatever the reason, I stop you from leaving because we're alone on that aisle and somehow that makes it ours."

She was quiet as they both stared up into the heavens.

"I have no idea what to say so I just ask you to help me pick out a book. Your smile gets bigger and a million new song ideas stampede through my brain. And as we search the shelves for a small universe in need of an 'Austin', I'm so excited because at least I'm no longer in need of an 'Ally'.

He sighed with a hint of finality.

"Not bad at all." She nodded in approval and attempted to catch her breath, "I was almost expecting it to suck."

"I mean I do what I can." He smiled, "You wanna hear the epilogue?"

"Geez there's an epilogue?! Are you trying to one up my story?"

"Als please, your story's not even in the same league as mine."

"False! I call shenanigans!"

Austin knocked on the car hood once, "Overruled!"

And suddenly they were lost in another drug-induced laughing fit, shaking the entire car in their hysterics.

"Okay so 'epilogue'" he arced his hand across the sky for emphasis. They both traced constellations with their eyes and waited, somewhat breathlessly, for the words.

"That night I write like 2 or 3 songs and even read the first few chapters of whatever book you picked out for me. And the next day when we meet up with the cloud watchers I tell you about the book so far and you smile again and I'm gonna have some kind of mini heart attack eventually. We watch the clouds float against a sky that I swear is bluer than usual. You point out dolphins and trumpets and other silly things up there with your eyes shining and your beautiful mind racing and, honestly, I'm probably in love with you already." Austin took a deep breath, "Then, gradually, everything happens as it should. We become friends between the guitars and the fiction novels and the clouds…then best friends over secrets and weird conversation ….then boyfriend and girlfriend during movies and dinners and walks along the rising tide…." He turned to look at her and she him, "…And then we fall, completely, into the deepest love anybody's ever seen…"

For a moment, neither spoke. How could they when Austin was so hopelessly lost in her eyes, wandering that mahogany world with neither sense nor direction? How could Ally utter a thing with her brain stuck in an endless loop of 3 primitive words: Kiss him forever! Kiss him forever! Kiss him…forever. She was a song writer, a lyricist, rendered speechless by a handsome blonde boy who loved her more than pancakes. They were down the rabbit hole, plummeting towards something she wasn't prepared to face, especially not with their past so painful and their bloodstreams so tainted.

So Ally bit her lip and looked away, eyes ping ponging between the stars. And when she started to applaud sarcastically it was only to hide her aching heart with humor.

"Bravo Moon. You're like the next JK Rowling or something."

"Ok what's up with you and these Harry Potter references?"

She giggled, "I'm not sure I think I'm still pretty high."

Austin, whose buzz persisted as well, shook his head in amusement, "Well unless we wanna play real life Mario Kart I think we should probably stay here a little longer until one of us is good to drive."

"Good idea."

And, without thinking at all, she scooted closer to him and laid her head on his chest. Austin didn't even hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She was losing control. The marijuana was pushing her up into the violet night but it was nothing compared to Austin's thudding heartbeat, to his comforting warmth. He was a drug all on his own, invading her brain, dissolving her defenses. Then, out of nowhere, she was talking.

"I love-"

And Ally had to bite her lip so quickly and with such force it nearly drew blood. They waited in silence, her with eyes wide and close to tears. Austin's heart beat hard and incredibly loudly in her ear. He held his breath the entire time, even as the night crawled on and left them behind.

"…your story." She kept her voice as steady as possible while the first tear rushed down her cheek and soaked into his white t-shirt, "I love your story Austin. It was perfect."

"Thanks Als." He could breathe again, albeit painfully.

And it didn't really matter that they both knew she intended to say something else. It didn't matter because they didn't want it to just yet and, when you're high, reality is what you make it.

Ally shivered a little as the first cool wind of the night breezed over them, her chills stemming from the absence of something much more profound than a jacket.

The End.

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